In 2024, CHAT turned 45.
It all started with the legacy of our founder, Phyllis Kupperman, who saw a gap in services and, in her words, “would give away the services anyway, so [she] might as well start a nonprofit.”
Today, her legacy abounds with 45 years of giving the gift of communication to those with few – if any – other options.
At CHAT, we believe that communication is a human right and seek to serve as many children as possible who are turned away elsewhere.
On September 26, 2024, we hosted our 45th Anniversary Benefit. The event raised over $120,000 and honored two remarkable individuals who have made an indelible impact on the world in the areas of communication justice and inclusion – Dean E. Patrick Johnson and Randy Lewis.
CHAT honored Dean E. Patrick Johnson with its inaugural Communication Justice Award. Johnson is the Dean of the School of Communication and Annenberg University Professor at Northwestern University. He has long been a pioneer in the communications space as a prolific performer/scholar, and an inspiring teacher, whose research and artistry has greatly impacted African American studies, Performance studies, and Gender and Sexuality studies.
CHAT honored Randy Lewis with its Inclusion Champion Award. In his role as a Senior Vice President of Walgreens, Lewis created thousands of full-time jobs for people with disabilities. In his book, No Greatness Without Goodness, Lewis tells the powerful story of a corporate executive who, after watching the world through the eyes of his own child with Autism, realized that we all have a greater responsibility to make the world a better place for everyone, including those with disabilities.
We celebrated CHAT’s legacy and looked to the future, announcing our partnership with Northwestern University’s Department of Communication Sciences Disorders (CSD). Through this partnership, CHAT has already begun serving more children, providing access to speech-language services that they would not otherwise have had.
Together with CSD’s Pediatric Speech Technologies and Acoustic Research Lab (PedzSTAR), led by Dr. Marisha Speights, and the Childcare Network of Evanston (CNE), led by Executive Director Carol Teske, CHAT is supporting children at eight Head Start and Preschool for All sites in Evanston and Skokie. In furtherance of CHAT’s mission of communication justice, this silo-breaking work is named the “Communication Justice Project.”
This community-based initiative is committed to dismantling systemic barriers to enable equitable access to speech-language services, echoing Dean E. Patrick Johnson’s lifetime commitment to uplift under-represented voices and carrying on CHAT’s mission of serving those with few – if any – other options.
Click HERE to read more about the partnership.
CHAT looks forward to the growth of the program to break down barriers to care and to reach hundreds more children with life-changing speech therapy services.